u/Affectionate_Bed3953

Hi! Thank you for your help in advance. I’ve sent out some query letters already after getting feedback in various forms (not from here), but still haven’t gotten a single request. So …. Yeah… please help. Thanks again.

Hi AGENT NAME,

I’m seeking representation for my debut novel, HARVEST, an 88,000-word literary thriller about a young man who is kidnapped for his organs and survives by joining the very syndicate that planned to kill and sell him. The novel will appeal to readers who enjoy the propulsive pacing of The Chain by Adrian McKinty and the criminal underworld immersion of The Godfather by Mario Puzo.

Nineteen-year-old Dre Mangum is trying to outrun the life Boston has handed him. Orphaned and boxed in by the city’s toughest neighborhoods, he turns to the drug trade with his childhood friends, Terrance and Philip, the only family he has left.

The money offers escape. The power offers control. For once, things are going right—until they’re kidnapped by an organ-trafficking syndicate and set to be killed and sold for their organs.

Desperate to stay off the operating table, Dre convinces the syndicate he may be worth more to them alive than dead. Instead of carving him up, they offer him a deal: kidnap and deliver two people to be sold in his place, and he can earn a place among their ranks.

If he succeeds, he stays alive. If he fails, he’ll be taken back and cut apart.

Dre takes the deal to buy time, but what begins as a desperate bid for survival pulls him deeper into the syndicate’s brutal world, forcing him to confront the question he’s been running from his whole life: how far is he willing to go to make it out—and what will it cost him if he does?

My short fiction has appeared in more than forty literary magazines. I am a recipient of the Phyllis Gebauer Scholarship in Writing and a graduate of the UCLA Extension Fiction Writing Certificate program.

HARVEST draws on my experiences living in a dangerous Boston neighborhood, my travels, and my lifelong attraction to the road less traveled.

I currently reside in Southern California.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

First 300 words:

Dre’s heart pounds as the train screeches into the station.

The platform shudders beneath him. An icy wind howls through the tunnel. Across the crowd, a man in a red jacket stares at him.

He tells himself it’s nothing. Just someone who saw him and decided to look back. Still, the man doesn’t glance away.

Two boys dart past and clip Dre’s leg. He shifts, catching himself before he stumbles. Their mother yanks them close, eyes flicking to Dre like he’s dangerous, like he’s the kind of guy you keep your kids away from.

Maybe she’s not wrong.

When Dre looks back up, the man in the red jacket is already gone.

The train grinds to a stop. Dust sweeps the platform as commuters drift toward the yellow line. Dre angles around them, scanning over shoulders and between bags for that red jacket.

He double-checks his inside pocket and tucks the cash firmer against his body. His nerves always spike right before a big deal. He tells himself it’s just one more job, one more handoff. Then he can figure it out. He slips into the train amid the late-afternoon rush, the doors clamping shut behind him.

The man’s stare keeps replaying. A shadow of dread creeps in. It could be nothing, but the last time Dre ignored his instincts, he ended up with a gun to his head and a scar he still traces when he can’t sleep.

The train jolts forward, plunging into the tunnel. Dre grips the icy pole as the car lurches.

Then he spots him, sitting at the far end—the man in the red jacket, staring harder this time. Neither looks away. It feels like a game of chicken.